Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72790 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72790 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I slammed my fork down.
“I’m gonna fucking help her. Motherfuckers.”
Dev walked up with Donnie. Everyone was fucking here to ride me. Great.
“Did you say the Margarelli brothers?”
But Dev didn’t make fun. He just asked the guys to fill him in. Callaway did the honors while I watched him like a hawk, daring him to say something bad about my Angel.
“Lucky met a girl. She won’t go out with him because she’s in trouble with the mob.”
“That’s not good, Lucky.”
“I know. Gotta help her.”
Dev nodded.
“Yeah. Okay. She must be special.”
“She is.”
Mac rolled his eyes.
“She might be special. He rolled in here at dawn drunk as a skunk.”
Dev just nodded.
“I guess somebody clear-headed better go over there with him tonight.”
Jack’s hand came down on my shoulder.
“I’ll do it.”
“You sure? That place doesn’t even open until ten. That’s past your bedtime.”
He just grunted. I liked that about him. He was kind of like a big brother to me.
“Thanks, man.”
“I’ll go too,” Callaway offered.
“Me too.”
Fuck, now everyone was piping in.
“Guys, we don’t want to draw attention. I don’t want to make things worse for her.”
“Okay, so Jack is out. Callaway, your ink is way too memorable. Drake can come.”
Drake’s head popped up from when he was loading a fresh keg behind the bar.
“What the fuck, am I not memorable?”
I shook my head.
“No, jackass, but I’m more used to bossing you around.”
Chapter 6
Kirsten
“Do you want seconds?”
I watched Jacey hoover up her vegetables. I’d been stretching them out all week. They were from the farmers market last Sunday. Pricey but I felt better feeding her clean food.
With all the drugs she had to take, she needed every edge she could get.
The truth was, she needed fresh air and sunshine. But this was the best I could do. For now. Someday it would be better. She’d beat the odds. I would find a way.
My kid was much more comfortable with the idea of dying young than I was.
“No thanks, Mom.”
She coughed and I froze, watching her carefully. She shook her head at me.
“I’m fine.”
I pressed my hand to her forehead.
“Seriously, I’m fine.”
“Okay.” She gave me a look. “Sorry, sorry.”
She hated it when I fussed, but I couldn’t help it. Just a simple cold could damage my beautiful baby’s lungs. She was that fragile.
And there was no cure.
But with some very expensive drugs, extensive precautions and a lot of luck, she might live to adulthood. After that, everything else was gravy.
“Okay. You want to watch TV or read in the living room?”
She nodded and padded out there in her bare feet. I had to perform our nightly ritual. I turned off the HEPA air filter in her bedroom. Then I wiped out the humidifier with an industrial strength anti bacterial soap. I rinsed it twice and set it up with distilled water, so it pointed towards her bed, but not right on her.
I even had a salt lamp in there for the negative ions, whatever they were.
I looked around, cleaning up and using wipes on everything. We didn’t wear shoes in her bedroom, or bring in text books, jackets or book bags. Nothing that could carry germs. It made a difference, having a ‘clean’ room where she was safe to sleep or even sit on the floor.
My baby was born premature, not so unusual for a teen pregnancy.
It was a few years before I realized something more was wrong. She coughed a lot and was always a little out of breath. It didn’t take long to figure out why. Jacey was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. Her body made too much mucus, which made it hard to clear her lungs and hard to breathe. So we avoided dairy and wore masks during flu season. We got good at washing our hands and using hand sanitizer. I gave her herbal tea with Manuka honey almost every night to clear out her throat before bed.
We learned to be very, very careful. She’d already been lucky. Lots of kids didn’t make it all the way to eight without periods of hospitalization. Fifty years ago, it was rare to live past ten with CF. Now the odds were much better but there was no guarantee. I just wanted her to live long enough for them to find a cure.
I had done a lot of research. We tried everything that the doctors wanted us to try, and everything that the wuwu websites said to try. From what I’d read, it was best to try both traditional and nontraditional methods together. Some things helped, some didn’t.
My baby is going to live, dammit. She has to.
The doorbell rang and I hurried to answer it. Our neighbor was there to babysit. I thanked God everyday for Mrs. Keeley. She wouldn’t let me pay her for sitting up with Jacey. She said she would be up late alone in her apartment watching TV anyway, she might as well do it here.